


Elfstone

by Nefertari_Amun



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Denying reality, F/M, Family Drama, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Post death experiences, Sisters, Translation, Trigger for AIDS, Twins, bookverse, collaboration work, many OCs - Freeform, mending a broken Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-07 10:33:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3171598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nefertari_Amun/pseuds/Nefertari_Amun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Middle-Earth, 3018 third age] </p>
<p>The unidentical twins Fearwynn and Gwyneth don't have a lot in common. Actually they only share the same parents and the expectation that their life should always have been something more. But then they recieve a gift. One they basically had since their birth and they strand in Middle-Earth. </p>
<p>While Fearwynn is believing she is either in coma or died from her AIDS, Gwyneth seems sure to be stuck right in the craziest LARP ever. But none of the two women really consider the true reason for their arrival in Middle-Earth, especially when war is upon everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How to save a life

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Elfstone - Das Geheimnis der Elbensteine](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/92872) by Nefertari Amun und LilorienSilme. 



> Well hi!
> 
> It's been long since I wrote my last english FF, and i don't have a beta, so please be kind.
> 
> The original FF is written in german and I just had some time to translate the first chapters.
> 
> Please tell me if you like it and if I should continue translating the story (the story is completed in german)
> 
> Every chapter ist written in the POV of one of the two sisters.

 

_Fearwynn_

 

 

The scratching in my throat began again. My body trembled as I was once again hit by one of my coughing fits. I desperately tried to catch a breath and it was harder than an outsider might guess. I was glad that no one of my family was nearby. After my last attack of dyspnea last night I had been relocated from my normal hospital room to the ICU.

Exactly 3 weeks ago, when doctors suspected a serious pneumonia, I was rushed to the special clinic that I now called my home. Normally an early stage pneumonia was no reason to be rushed to hospital, especially a special clinic. Concerning me, this was very different. After a little incident 19 years ago four letters haunted my life: AIDS.

"Wynni, your mother's here." Martha, one of the younger nurses whispered while she poked her head through the door of my room. After I almost collapsed while my mother visited yesterday, the nurses made sure I was okay before letting anyone inside. Trying to put my coughing under control I nodded to her. I didn't want my mother to worry more than she already did.

I knew she felt indirectly responsible for what had happened to me. She thought it was her fault, that she could have prevented it. We had been on an extended school trip to a small Eifel town and she had been one of the parents accompanying us. During a short night trip she was responsible to watch after our little group of Girls, that meant my twin sister Gwyneth and a few of our school friends. For a brief moment she was distracted by a call of her best friend an she didn't realize that I fell behind while they were moving on through a small park. I kind of did it for a dare and I wasn't going to lose it. Back then I considered myself brave and not afraid of the dark. Guess that changed after that night, like the rest of my life did.

Not far from the spot where I left the others, a dopehead had made his camp. Of course I was too young to realize the danger ahead, honestly I didn't even know what a dopehead was. The camp was empty and there was no clue, that his owner would return anytime soon. I was scared to the bones when the dopehead suddenly appeared in front of me. His gaze was fixed on me but he seemed to see right through me, or something different than a small girl of 10 years.

Something in his head went mental and I could see it in his eyes. Of course I began to freak out. I wanted to run away, but he was tall enough to reach me with a single step and tried to grab me. Apparently he hadn't expected that he grabbed a human and his hold on my arm was to light to really stop me, but it was enough to get me out of balance. I stumbled right over his stuff, crashed some bottles and fell into one of his syringes.

I didn't realize the thin needle in my arm, due to the pain of the various cuts from the splintered glass, until I reached the others. My mother immediately panicked and rushed me to an emergency doctor. Of course he tested me for the HIV Virus and after several weeks we got the result that the test was positive.

By now, 19 years later, I was 29 and the disease had immensely weakened my immune system.

"Fearwynn. How are you?", my mother asked anxiously. In her eyes I saw how much it hurt her to see me wired to all this medical equipment. I suppose she would have loved to tear it all apart and just take me home with her, live a normal life. Again and again I tried to quench the irritation, to stifle my cough. But that resulted into me only being able to give my mother a short, cut off nod.

"Happy birthday darling. Gwyn asked how you are doing, when I called her today.", she said in a whisper an I heard a slight sadness in her voice. Yes, today was my 29th birthday and it wasn't sure if I would see another birthday. But I knew that wasn't the only reason for her sadness. The other was Gwyn. Gwyn was my 15 minutes older twin sister Gwyneth.

"If she wants to know how I am, she should come, see for herself.", I answered and didn't try to hide my resentment. Gwyn and me were non-identical twins but that didn't mean we were close, in fact by the time I got infected our relationship started to break until there was a wide gulf between us. After our parents got divorced 10 years ago she stayed with our father and we saw little of one another.

"Actually, she had been thinking of coming, but she wasn't sure, if you wanted to see her." I saw in her eyes, that the detached relationship between her daughters wasn't something that she took lightly, but she had to accept it. Gwyneth had always been daddy's little girl while I had become a red rag for him after my infection. From the day the diagnosis came to us he had turned away from me, tried to spend as little time with me as possible. I suppose they both were afraid of being contaminated, even if that wasn't possible, at least when you knew what you were dealing with. They were apparently disgusted by me.

This misconception on my part had led to the divorce of my parents and a even greater divide between my sister and myself. Since then we only spoke with each other on Christmas and our birthday.

Then I could no longer hold the cough back and I immediately realized how the cough worked through my already sore throat with more sandpaper. I once again struggled to breath and with shaking hands my mother filled some water into a glass. But I didn't reach for the glass of water, I reached for a tissue, because I realized how a warm liquid started to come up with the cough and I knew exactly what that was.

My mother froze for a moment when she saw the red blood on the tissue and on my lips but after a moment of utter immobility she ran out of the room calling for a doctor. This was not the first time this had happened, but I hadn't told my mother. I didn't want her to worry more than she already did. The doctor had already told me, that there was no way getting around a tube in my throat when blood came up again, but I guess they didn't expect it to be this soon.

"We have to do the surgery right now, Miss Johnson", the doctor said when he entered the room with a few scampered nurses and some instruments.

"Isn't it too risky to anesthetize her right now?", my mother asked, her voice shaking with fear now. Of course it was risky, anesthesia was always risky, if you were ill or not. But I was willing to take the risk, considering that it was better to fall into eternal sleep than to suffocate because of my own blood pouring into my lungs. In fact, the thought of my miserable life ending wasn't that bad after all.

Then, all of a sudden the door to my room opened again and my sister stepped inside. Her eyes widened as soon as she realized what was going on. She looked at me dumbfounded and tears started to rise in her eyes while she slowly walked to my mother. Apparently it affected her to see me lying there, still caught in the new, bloody coughing fit, not being able to catch a breath. But I couldn't buy the feigned attachment she showed, or at least I didn't want to take it as real. I was sure she only feigned it for the various nurses and doctors trying to save my life.

"We can talk later.", I said disinterested to her while I continued coughing. Just as the white fluid started to run straight through the small tube linked to my veins I saw the bunch of Gerberas in her hands, my favorite flowers. Then everything started to blur and went into deep blackness.

"Look over there!" A muffled sound came to my ears . I could only guess that the tube was placed, the surgery over and anesthesia was slowly losing its effect. But I did not feel woozy. The normal feeling after a general anesthetic was missing.

I slowly I opened my eyes, but I closed them again immediately. I could not believe what I saw. My eyes had to play a trick on me. I opened my eyes again and was expecting to see the well known walls of the ICU, but like the first time I just saw something green before my eyes. By my somewhat blurred view I could not see what was the green in front of me . What surprised me the most was the smell that reached my nose. It was a mixture of earth and wood, which didn't quite fit in with the place where I thought I was.

"What business has a lady like yourself in the wilderness? " The voice was unfamiliar to me, but I could make out that it belonged to an older man who seemed to stand behind me.

"In the wilderness?" I turned around slowly and now saw that the man was actually old and knelt behind me. Then my eyes focused on the environment. There were trees everywhere.

"Who are you and why have you brought me out of the ICU?" I asked pretty worried. Didn't he know how dangerous it was for me out here? It was then, that I noticed that the man was not wearing a white coat, which pointed out that he surely wasn't a doctor. Slight panic rose in me. Had I been kidnapped? What did someone like him want to do with me?

"I do not know what you mean by an "Iseeyou", but be sure, I have not brought you here , I just found you lying here sleeping." He said. Which didn't make things better for me. I didn't have the slightest idea where I was and who this guy was. But the idea that he didn't know what an ICU was, let alone how to pronounce it, made me nervous.

He was probably one of the hillbillies living in some parts of the country. One of those people who still rejected all forms of modernity, because that also was what the long garment that he was wearing looked like. It was worn out at some places and looked as if he had been wearing it for quite a long time.

"Deorhain!" I heard another voice, and the old man turned in the direction from which the call had come. Was that his name? Deorhain? I already found my name very exceptional, but Deorhain? What mother called his child Deorhain? If I wouldn't have been in such a situation, I would have certainly started to laugh at the name, but I still didn't know where I was and how I got there.

"I'll be right there, my young friend." he called back and looked at me.

"You cannot stay here, child. Not in these perilous times.", he said with an urgency in his voice that made me realize that he was convinced of what he said. I normally was an expert on knowing people, and this man didn't seem to be a threat.

He reached down to me and I took his hand to get up. I already expected to sway a little bit but my legs seemed to be strong. That was the first time I was looking down at me. The first thing I saw was that my clothes seemed to consist of three parts. A black, tight leather pants, a black Leather corset and a long dress-like, olive green cape that was corded up on the front. My feet were covered in black leather overknees.

The old man motioned for me to follow him. We trudged a few meters through rough terrain right through brambles, but their spines didn't affect the thick leather that was covering my skin.

"Where are you taking me?", I asked when I realized that, against my hopes, we weren't going to a street where I could catch a cap or be picked up by an ambulance. Then I realized that I didn't cough anymore and there was no irritation in my throat, so I assumed at least the surgery was successful.

"I'll take you to the others . Maybe they know something about you.", he said, and went his way without further explanation.

"Ah, there you are Deorhain! ", I recognized the other mans' voice. Shortly after that I was able to see him. He was tall and his short, dark brown hair played with his rather rectangular face. A slight hint of a beard emerged from his chin all the way up to his hairline , but he seemed to trim it on a regular basis.

"Who's that company of yours old man? " He asked, looking at me questioningly. The old man grinned mischievously. "What did he tell you? He was a magician and just looked old? Or something else? " Now I saw back and forth between the two men. What was going on here?

"Watch your tongue or you will lose it in old age.", said Deorhain and the young man laughed. "I found her lying on the forest floor, unconscious." The boy eyed him skeptically, then looked at me and I nodded.

"How did you get there?"

Very funny, ha, ha. How should I know? After all I was the one, who was placed under anesthesia and woke up here. "If I knew, I knew who I would have to sue for incompetence!" I snapped at him sharply.

"In-what?" I breathed in and out deeply. That couldn't be real. Where did I end up? "Incompetence! The inability of people to do something properly! Such as to bring someone under anesthesia back into the recovery room and not take them into a forest and leave them there!" I realized how anger boiled up inside of me, the frustration of the last years reaching the surface of my mind.

"And besides, one of you two freaks undressed me! Do you know how dangerous it actually is? Isn't it enough that I suffer from pneumonia, no you want to kill me ... oh wait a moment, I'm dead already... " I stopped frozen. Was it just that? Was I dead or propably in a coma? Was this all a dream? I pinched myself once an it hurt so much, that I was sure that I wasn't dreaming, and this definitely didn't look like paradise.

The men were still staring at me with open mouths, apparently they understood nothing of what I said. I had approached them with rudeness that they certainly didn't deserve, they had nothing to so with my situation. On the contrary, Deorhain even helped me, without him I certainly would have been lost in this forest.

"I'm sorry, my name is Fearwynn.", I said and looked at them a little embarrassed , but the two men smiled at me.

"As you've heard I'm Deorhain , Thorhelm's son, and this young fellow here is Erebor, Retren's son. "


	2. Leave out all the rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwyneth copes with the death of her twin sister

 

_Gwyneth_

 

 

The day of my sisters funeral was probably the worst day I ever had to witness within my 29 years of life, so far. Of course her death wasn't a big surprise for me and my parents, but it hurt none the less.

For years she had been struggling with a serious illness that was commonly known as AIDS. Those four letters where said so easily but the disease was everything but that. For Fearwynn those four letters had always ment a high amount of restrictions. Not only restrictions in finding a job because of what others thought and knew about the disease, but it also affected her when it came to love. Nothing was easier than to infect another during joint lovemaking.

But my twin sister was not the only one suffering because of her disease. Our parents and I also had a pretty hard time. Our father was probably the least to be able to manage that his little girl might bite the dust sooner than him. For fear of being deeply hurt when Wynni should die, he had started to distance himself from her. But that had not helped him in the slightest. The news of her death still had thrown him off course. While still talking to me at the phone, after she had died, he had succumbed to a nervous breakdown and now, on her funeral I was the one that had to support him.

Our mother was quite calm at the service. Everyday for the past years she had visited my sister with the knowledge that this visit could be the last time she saw her daughter alive. I assume she had said goodbye to her long before that day in the hospital, our birthday.

And as far as I was concerned, I had no time to mourn at all. I was too busy keeping my father from falling into the deep black hole that unfolded before us. I was so involved in this, that I didn't even follow the service that was given for my sister. I just sat there, holding him in my arms like a little child, listening to his random fits of crying.

They had brought her lifeless body back here from the US and I picked them up at the Airport in Cologne. It was more than strange. Only a few days earlier I had been there, watching as she had been prepped for her last surgery, how she fell into a sleep she never woke up from again.

To be honest, I really don't know why I flew to her. Something deep inside me had made me want to celebrate our last birthday before the big 3 0. I'm sure Grandma would call it fate, that I reached her at her last day, her last minutes. I call it coincidence. I don't believe in fate.

When the doctor came through the doors of the OR, put off his mask and looked at us, that was the moment I knew it. He had that look only doctors have and we all have seen on countless episodes of "Grey's Anatomy" or "ER". And to be honest no one thinks about ever getting that look themselves. Thinks like this always happen to others. The only time you get to know about missing surgical instruments or complications was in newspapers or when someone told you about it. But never in your wildest dreams would you suggest something like this happening to you or someone in your family.

But the worst of it was the fact that I immediately recognized this look. In that very moment something deep inside of me had clicked and I had known that I would not see my sister again in this life. It was like knowing it was going to rain soon.

My mother had started crying immediately, she had been expecting that day and had skipped the phase I was in right now: defiance. I couldn't believe it, even if I knew better. My heart told me the truth, my mind desperately battled against it. But some time while I was standing in this hallway in front of the OR my heart won and I joined my mother in crying.

But this Phase of crying didn't last very long. I was stuck with the formalities since my mother wasn't able to settle them. However, she and Wynni had already done a good preparatory work. It was horrible to think, that my sister prepared her own funeral but it was a big help for me, seeing I just had to sign the forms. Perhaps it had been her way to cope with the fact that she could die. The last thing I did was to book a flight back to Cologne for my mother, Fearwynns Coffin and me. I went back a few days earlier so I could prepare the service and everything else back in Germany while Fearwynn's body was sent to a mortician to get her last make-up.

I quickly put my own feelings aside, seeing the coffin made of pressboard in which they had transported her. It hit me hard to see this little, shabby coffin and imagine that my sister was lying inside of it, that this small box offered enough space for her stiffened body.

Fortunately the german mortician already waited for us. When I spotted a last glance at her she was wearing her favorite summer dress, her hair was draped around her head like a halo and her hands were folded in her lab. Wouldn't it have been for her stiffness, I probably would have though she was only taking a short nap. For a moment I gave in to the feelings rushing my mind and I gently stroked her face. To be honest, I was so tired of it all, that a part of me wished to just lay down beside her.

"She's still such a wonderful girl.", my mother whispered when the mortician loaded the shabby coffin into his car. I nodded, but then left my mother alone. I had to get to my father. The funeral would be later the same day and I had to make him at least halfway presentable. Our grandparents would be there, together with the rest of our rather small family. I also invited some of our old friends from school. They all had reacted similar when they got to know that one of our little group, one of our age had passed away. I saw the same despair in their eyes, that I tried to hide in this very moment.

When the mahogany coffin, supported by a metal rod, was slowly lowered into the grave my mother stepped forth first. She threw a hand full of dust onto the floral arrangement on top of the coffin then stepped aside, giving others room to say goodbye to Fearwynn. While standing behind my father, I watched silent tears rolling down my mothers cheeks.

Then it was dads' and my turn to say goodbye. I had lived with him since the divorce of my parents, till I finally moved out a few years ago. Living with him was rather easy. He didn't ask too many questions, didn't expect much and looked at every single painting I did as if it was a masterpiece, no matter how horrible they had actually been.

But the bundle of misery infront of me didn't have much in common with the strong and proud man that he had once been. His broad shoulders sank as much as they could, his hair hadn't seen the shower for quite a while – his hair was so messy that he seemed to have lost half of it during the past few days – and his blue eyes that reminded me so much of my sisters eyes seemed lifeless and were swollen with tears.

"Dad, if you can't take it, tell Grandpa to take you back to the car, okay?" I asked, but he only shook his head. It seemed uncontrolled, as if he wasn't sure what to do, probably because he was still crying. Then, reaching into the dustpot his eyes suddenly became more determined.

He took one step foreward, looked right at the Coffin below him, mumbleded something I could not understand, threw some dust on the arrangement and turned away.

That was the moment I was alone.

I would like to say that saying goodbye to my sister was as easy for me as it had been for my mother. But it wasn't. Wynni and I didn't have an easy time together. Before she got sick, we had been the best of friends. We had been like real twins, doing everything together and stuff. But with her AIDS everything had changed. Suddelny I had the impression of not being important anymore, like only the sick girl mattered. After all the healthy one could care for herself, you didn't have to give attention to her.

But that wasn't true. My parents had disappointed me immensely by featuring her health over my feelings. Today, of course, I can understand them, but that doesn't mean it makes me happy. It had been kind of like a liberation when dad moved out of our parents' house and took me with him. We finaly had the father-daughter-relation I had always wished for. But it had been too late, the damage had been done and I was far away from being a little girl. But I had longed for his love anyway.

Now that Wynni was gone, I suddenly felt emptiness within me. I realized that there had always been an undercut feeling of hatred towards her. I just never told anyone and how could I? How could anyone understand that I hated her because she had a deathly disease and took all the love of our parents for herself, until there was no love left for me. They would have thought I was the most coolhearded bitch they've ever met. And that was exactly how I had felt during the past 19 years of her illness.

But now this hatred was gone. It had died along with Wynni and I suddenly realized how utterly egoistic my behavior in the past years had been. I should have been at her side, I should have been there for her, like a real sister would have. But I had been too obsessed with bathing in my own sorrow. And finally in this very moment, while I was standing in front of her coffin the tears started pouring down my cheeks. Finally the tight knot in my throat burst. Sobbing, I took a hand full of dust and threw it into the grave. "I'm so sorry, Wynni.", I whispered and left the funeral.

I skipped the little Teatime my mother had arranged after the funeral. I didn't care what people said anymore. I had to be alone now. I left my father with his parents and drove to my studio. This was the only place where I could vent my emotions. Here I didn't have to care about anyone. I could …

Yeah, what could I actually do here? I stared at the blank canvas in front of me and for the moment, I had the feeling, nothing could fill it. The fabric was as plain and empty as I felt deep inside. The funeral had upset me, had me facing feelings I always tried to hide. I never had the talent on showing or telling people what was on my mind. That was what my pictures were for. They gave me the instrument to show my feelings.

Finally, some colors began to shine before my inner eye and I knew what to paint. Quickly, so I wouldn't forget the thought, I stripped off my funeral gap and put on my white painters overall. Then, without thinking about the brush I grabbed some of my colors. I put them into my hand, squashed them a little and then carried the color onto the canvas.

I filled the entire 2-square-meter canvas, not a single spot remained white. When the sun set, I looked at my work in the light of the bright neon lights. It was gloomy, like all of my paintings were. But something was different this time. I didn't know what caused it, but this picture seemed more valuable to me than my other works. Maybe because so many emotions flooded my mind while painting it.

The base color was red. I had long ago realized, I had always used red in my paintings when thinking about Fearwynn. It had always been red since she had gotten sick. The dark shading in this picture ment, that she had faded from this world. She no longer was the bright red flash I used in some of my older pictures, she was an almost brown kind of red, like dead roses.

The read was broken by a few tips of light blue, like the sky after a huge thunderstorm, when the clouds start to ripp apart. The bottom of the picture was covered in an dark green line and the middle was dominated by a huge dark-yellow spot that seemed to have rays, just like the sun. But they weren't warm and cosy, they seemed hard and cold.

I stared at my work for little while and tried to figure out what my subconsciousness wanted to tell me with that picture. I had had no special picture in mind while painting, I just let go and did what I felt like. Mostly that's when masterpieces were made.

Tired I finally laid down on the sofa, ignoring the fact that my hands and other parts of my body were still covered in color, and fell asleep. I was caught by a strange dream of a vast green landscape. Nothing seemed familiar to me and I couldn't guess on which hemisphere of the world I seemed to be. But above me a red sun gazed down on me.

Looking closer I realized, that it wasn't a sun after all. It had an oval shape, almost like a football and was surrounded by flames while jumping back and forth in a strange manner. It terrified me and I woke up screaming and sweating. I couldn't have slept very long, because it was still dark outside and for a split second I was so disoriented, and didn't know where I was. It took a while until my heart stopped pounding hard and my breath calmed down.

The next morning I sent a photograph of the picture I made to my agent. Actually I should have been at high school teaching kids how to paint, but after what happened the last few days I had taken a few days off. If I would have been in front of one of those mind blowing teenagers, I probably would have killed one of them. I certainly didn't want to take the risk so I stayed in my studio, and waited for a message from my agent.


	3. Stranger in a strange land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fearwynn follows the two Rangers through the forest and meets up with a, in her eyes, rather shaggy stranger.

 

_Fearwynn_

 

 

Where did I end up? That question bothered my mind since I woke up in that shaggy dark forest two weeks ago. I was done with constantly asking the two guys that found me what had happened, because they ensured me, in their pretty old-fashioned way, that they knew nothing of it. They just found me, no trace of someone bringing me there and no trace from where I came from. Assuming the next city was a few day marches away my questions would be unanswered for some time.

What had caught me on surprise was that my coughing fits had stopped. I had hardly coughed at all within the last 14 days here in the woods. Of course I had to cough once or twice but that even happened to normal, healthy people.

I chuckled sarcastically "healthy people", surely I couldn't be added to them. The word healthy had been deleted from my vocabulary a long time ago. I'd never been able to live like others my age, never being able to do what was normal in my age. No matter where I went, as soon as people learned about my illness, I was kind of an abnormality that needed to be avoided.

My thought travelled back to brighter, carefree times. Times were our now dysfunctional family slept in tents during the summer. Back then summer had been our favorite season. Not only because the temperatures where warm and cozy, but also because it was the time that little renaissance fairs spread over the whole country. We had been part of the community that stayed at such markets and pretended to be people of the mid ages, knights, farmers, Landlords and others. My mother had always been the tailor, and my father, the knight in shining armor, had met her like this for the first time many years before my sister and I had been born on a renaissance fair near Münster.

The following years we had been on various of those fairs and Gwyn and I had practically been raised up in two worlds at once, the modern world with all its technology and the medieval one where life itself was a challenge. We learned to build our own bows and to use them, also our father had taught us how to use a swords and daggers. Gwyn had always preferred to fight out of a shelter, from the distance. Thus the bow or in a face to face combat the longsword had been her favorite. I on the other hand wasn't too aware of danger back then and always preferred to look my opponent right into the eye. Thus the short sword or the daggers had been my favorite weapons. When I was close to someone, facing him, I could see what he was planning, I could see what they were doing before they really acted, so I could dodge them or land my hit first.

That was the reason why I hated my disease this much. It attacked you from your backside, secretly and conniving so that there was no chance of security, no chance of defense. No shield, no sword and no dagger was a good use against it, when it extended its grip on you.

"Lord Aragorn has been gone for several days now. I wonder what quest Gandalf gave him.", Deorhain murmured while he was preparing two rabbits over the campfire.

"Maybe he was held back in Rivendell. It is said, that his eyes fell on Lord Elronds daughter." Erebor snickered and earned a quick blow at the back of his head from Deorhain. But the elder man still smiled while Erebor rubbed the place where he had been hit and I couldn't stop snickering myself at the sight of the two men. It kind of reminded me of a grandfather and his grandson.

"You shouldn't listen to everything others say. It's better to see things with your own eyes."

The way Deorhain spoke those word immediately reminded me of Hubertus, one of the "Elders" how they were called on some fairs. Hubertus had been kind of a magician. He knew how to find certain herbs and to gain a healing effect from the mixture of them. But he also was good for storytelling at the campfire. After the sun had set he had always gathered all children around the campfire and told stories of brave knights and of beautiful young princesses. I, however had always preferred the stories about brave young maids that knew how to defend themselves and earned their respects for that. And of course they always found a knight in shining armor to love.

I had been young and naïve. Back then I had not known how the whole love thing went, not to speak that I didn't know that I would never be allowed to love.

For that I envied my sister. No matter how her life turned out, she always had the chance to love and be loved in return. She had always had the chance of a family of her own. The possibility to make her own family better than the one she had been born into. She had the chance to have a man that loved her, children to be a role model for and tell stories to. Every time that I had looked into her eyes for the past years, I had seen the life that would always be off limit for me and I tore me apart. I had to admit, that this illness had exacerbated me so much that I almost hated my sister for her supposed perfect and healthy life. She had the Job that she loved, a hobby and friends with whom to share everything. She had everything that I had ever wished for.

"What's got you so depressed Fearwynn?" I flinched a bit when I suddenly realized Erebor sitting right beside me and it took a few seconds for me to answer him.

"Nothing.", I lied. I doubted that he would understand me. He wouldn't understand that I hated my own sister for being healthy and happy. He'd take me for a monster. "I was just wondering what's going to happen next." He looked at me skeptical and I knew, that even here, wherever here was, I wasn't a good liar. To my utter surprise though, he let it go and didn't ask any further.

It irritated me a little bit. I wasn't used to just getting through with such an obvious lie. Back home my mother would constantly bother me with her questions, until I'd give in and tell her what really was wrong with me. I just had to sniff or chance my expression and she'd jump up expecting me to get sick again. She was overprotective of me, and a part of me understood why. Another part, the impatient part of me, had shouted at her several times for putting me in this cage of feathers. I didn't like being handles with kind gloves, in fact I hated it, and whenever I told my mother she would burst out in tears. My mother crying because of me? This was a thing I couldn't stand.

Lost in those kind of thoughts I watches the crackling fire and its flickering flames burning down every single log that Erebor and I had picked up from the floor earlier. I listened to the prickle, that was caused by the microscopic explosions of heated water within the woods bark, and let my thought travel on to the time where I had last sat in front of a campfire.

It had been a few month prior to the divorce of our parents. With an altogether hiking and camping trip they had started a last attempt at knitting our family back together the way it had been before my AIDS had been diagnosed. Of course neither of us really believed in the possibility of ever being the normal family again, but it was worth the try anyway, at least that was what we all had thought. Gwyn and me tried to stay as normal as we could, but our parents couldn't. My father tried hard not to speak a single word with me, and my mother didn't let me do normal things as preparing meal or setting up the tent with Gwyn. We had spent a whole weekend just my father and Gwyn, gathering wood and even hunting rabbits, while our mother cooked and I just lay in my tent reading, not being allowed to do anything that could get me sick or injured. Just at mealtimes we sat together eating in an awful silence.

"Who's Aragorn?", I whispered to Erebor, afraid that he would laugh at me. He smiled at me in a way that so much reminded me of a young boy being questioned about his number one role model, that I just had to smile too.

"Aragorn is one of us. In a way, he's our leader. When I say we, I mean every Ranger between the gulf of lune and the misty mountains. He's still relatively young, compared to some elders, in fact he's just some years older than I am, but he gained the respect of the elders and so he leads us." he explained euphorically and the way Erebor described this man, I pictured him to be a extraordinary man with an aura of strength and security, someone that pulled you under his spell immediately.

"And what does it mean to be one of the Rangers? What do you have to do?" I asked interested. I had never heard something about Rangers, at least not rangers like he described them. Now it was Erebors turn to stare into the fire, picking his words carefully.

"We make sure the roads are safe for hikers. That they are free from thieves or others that may attack the good people of this lands." he murmured slowly and I realized that though he seemed to be telling the truth, he wasn't telling me all of it.

Before I could ask him further though, we were interrupted by the sound of a galloping horse, approaching our position. Immediately Erebor put out the fire and motioned for me to be quiet. As soon as the light of the fire was gone it was pitch black and my eyes tried hard to adjust to this new darkness. I was blind. The only thing that indicated that we were in danger was the grinding sound of Deorhain and Erebor dragging their swords slowly. So I grabbed under my dress to drag my own daggers for the first time since I had realized them within my shoes two weeks ago. It felt strange having weapons in my hands again and I was afraid that I forgot how to use them in my years without any practice.

The sound of hoofs approaching us grew louder and louder warning us, that who ever that was, really headed our way. I felt my body stiffen, adrenalin pumping through my veins causing a slight tickling sensation in my whole body. Suddenly I was aware of every part of my body. I felt my hands clutching to the daggers, my feet searching for grip within the wet forest floor.

My body trembled with anxiety. It had been over 19 years that I last had daggers in my hands and back then it had only been showfights with blunted points, never a serious fight where you really had to defend yourself.

And Erebors deep but flat breathing told me, that this could be everything but a showfight. He was as tense as I was, perhaps even more. Then, just centimeters away from our position, the horse dashed down the road, without taking a notice of us. The high, unnatural shriek that followed short after was something I had never heared before, but the feeling that creeped up inside of me was familiar: Hopelessness. Immediately my throat felt constricted and my breathing quickened up in fear.

"What was that?", I asked when I finally regained my composure after some time.

"What do you think it was? What does your feeling tell you?" Deorhain asked alsmost like I was a child and I had to experience it myself. Erebor rolled his eyes and started to open his moth to give me a explanation but I held up my hand. I didn't want him to just present me the answer. If Deorhain thought I would be able to find it our myself, then I would at least try. I had enough of everyone giving me what I needed. I was tired of not being able to work for it. And even if this was just a question, I wanted to work for it. I went back to the moment when I first heared the sound of the thing coming closer. I remembered the hopelessness creeping up, the fear that imminent in all of us. And I remembered what I saw when the horse dashed across us.

"It was a Black rider on a Black horse." I said as conclusion and Deorhain nodded, but I could see that this was not all there was to say about those riders and their horses. "But the shriek, I never heared anything like it. I can't tell what kind of animal that was …"

"Ringwraith", horrified I turned around quickly. Upon rotation, I pulled out my daggers in reflex and they clanked against a sword as I stopped. I heard Erebor and Deorhain holding their breaths as I looked into a pair of greyish eyes. The man that held his sword against my daggers was taller than me, his messy dark hair hanging down to his shoulders, his clothes more than worn. In fact, he kind of scared me.

"Sharp weapons, for a lady like yourself.", he snickered and looked at my daggers not moving his sword. I shot a glance at Erebor and Deorhain who just stood beside us flabbergasted. Why weren't they supporting me, saving me from this man?

"They're sharp and I know how to wield them, my lord." I emphasized the last words looking him in the eyes challengingly. It was hard to withstand his persisting eyes that tried to battle you down just by looking at you. Then, after a short while in which we just stared at each other, Deorhain and Erebor still unable to do anything, the man with the sword started laughing. Deorhain and Erebor joined him with relief but I felt anger creeping up in me. I didn't know what was going on right now and he was still holding up his sword.

"Do you think it wise to laugh at someone with drawn weapons?", I hissed at him through clenched teeth but it only made him laugh harder.

"A woman with a loosened tongue." he said and with a single wave of his swords my daggers flew to the ground. I wasn't able to do a thing against it. "There are few armed women in this lands and even less dare to compete with a man. Tell me your name."

"Isn't it rude for a man not to introduce himself first, especially when he disarmed his opponent?", countered and he looked at me in disbelieve. Seemingly the women he had met weren't as emancipated as they should have been. I tried to withstand his glare but it wasn't easy, even more so because I wasn't sure it was safe to do it. I couldn't chance how I acted though. The adrenalin still rushing through my blood made me rebellious. It was my luck that my opponent seemed to like that.

"People call me Strider.", he said casually, still holding his sword to my face. Strider was definitely not his true name.

"I don't care how people call you. I want to know your true name, before I give you mine." I said causing him to laugh out again. I really didn't understand all of this and it started to really piss me of, especially Deorhain and Erebor. We had hiked through these woods for two weeks now, and all they did was standing there, laughing with the guy that was assaulting me.

"You please me. Even with the threat of death to your throat, you won't think of guarding your tongue."

"I'm happy that my way pleases you my lord, but that still leaves your true name open to me."

"That's Aragorn, son of Arathorn.", Deorhain jumped into our conversation with a slight snicker. I stiffened automatically. This man in front of me should be Aragorn? The leader? I took a second look at him. How could such a shabby, worn out man be the leader of anything?

"Now that you know my name young lady, would you care to give me yours?" he said finally lowering his sword. Assuming there really was no threat I just picked up my daggers, pulling them back into my shoes.

"Fearwynn.", I answered him shortly while handling with my daggers.

"Unfortunately we don't have much time for further explanation. Deorhain, Erebor, I'm traveling to Bree. Gandalf told me to look out for two Hobbits." he told the two men and they nodded thoughtfully as if they knew this was a very important mission. I just looked at them. If this man here really was the leader, who could tell him to do anything? He had the power; shouldn't _he_ be telling people what to do? Who was this Gandalf guy and what in the world were Hobbits?

"This Rider, does it mean what I think it does?", Deorhain asked in a low voice as if someone could overhear us. Aragorn just nodded with a grave look upon his face. This seemed to be deadly serious but I couldn't hold my tongue.

"Still rudeness seems to be your pleasure, Lord Aragorn, speaking in riddles so that not all understand." The three men looked at me surprised as I had my arms akimbo.

"You better go back to where you came from, Lady Fearwynn. This certainly isn't a safe place for a woman like yourself.", Aragorn replied with a slight threat in his voice. This was no option, he tried to order me as if I was one of his men. I didn't like his tone after all but I realized that I was starting so test his patience. He wanted me to go back, but I didn't know how. I was sure, the hospital would certainly be a safer place for me, but part of me had never felt more alive than I had in the past two weeks that I had spent here in the woods with Deorhain and Erebor. None of them held me back from doing what I wanted to, apparently not even when it was for my own good. They allowed me to make my own experiences, my own mistakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the last chapter I had pre-translated.
> 
> Now it's up to you guys. Should I go on translating the next 55 Chapters? Tell me with Kudos or, even better, comments ;-)


	4. Road to Perdition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwyneth struggels with herself after the death of her twin sister.

_Gwyneth_

 

 

The answer to my question came one week later. Someone wanted to display my painting. Reluctantly I gave it away to the gallery that wished to display it. To be honest with myself I would have rather kept it, but to what use? If I really would have wanted it, I wouldn’t have send the photo of it to my agent Herbert. Luckily the painting wasn’t sold right away.

At one time during the week, I had totally lost all sense of time, I prepared to drive to my mother, who momentarily lived in our old house again. There she was going through Wynnis old stuff and she wanted me to look if there was anything I wanted to have. I was rather confused when she suggested me taking some of my sisters old dresses. They definitely didn’t fit me. Wynni had always been a slightly bit taller and thinner than me.

With size 8 I wasn’t fat at all, but Wynni had always had what some people called “Size Zero” with a snarky remark, even though it really was size 5 or 7. No matter how hard I would try, I wouldn’t fit into those.

Apart from old clothes there were also our old toys. Toys that were so used my mother would have never gotten rid of them for a couple pennies. I had never been someone to cling to old, unused stuff only because it held memories. If there was anything I hadn’t used in a long time, it went to the trash. Especially cards, be it for birthdays or other occasions usually found their way there as soon as I had read them. My mother tended to keep them, stuff them in a box and store them somewhere until they pulverized.

The only thing I actually took with me was an old photograph of Wynni and me. I still remembered that day. It must have been on the school trip 19 years ago, right before Wynni got infected. I still could remember my mothers face when she had seen what happened to her daughter. Wynni had pointed to her arm crying, the needle of the syringe still in her arm. Our mother demanded her to show her where the accident exactly happened. Eventually the dopehead that had caused all this came back, yelling that his stuff was to be left alone and my mother went nuts. She yelled at him mercilessly even though I can’t really remember what her exact words were, but I remember the fear and tears in her eyes.

On the way back to the campside she hadn’t said one single word, even if my sister and me had constantly asked her what was frightening her so much that it almost seemed as if Wynni had to die. She had only bit her lips, tears running down her face. I guess she already knew, or at least supposed, what the consequences of this little trip would be. She didn’t have to wait for the test results to know that one of her little girls was doomed to die.

And from that moment on everything had changed. For every one of us.

“I’m sorry, Gwyn.”, my mother said. She had stepped beside me and laid her hands on my shoulders while I was watching the picture infront of me.

“What are you sorry for Mom?” I asked, turning around to face her. That was when I realized that I had her eyed.

I held the frame in my right hand, looking down at the two girls who couldn’t be more opposite. However, we both smiled. Smiled as if we had never seen anything bad in this world. Just a few days later, that happy world started crumbling in.

Gently my mother strocked my cheek. “What I’ve done to you.” I panted. “But you understand, right?” she asked and looked to me with my own eyes. Tears were showing there and I could see that she really was sorry for what had happened. But it didn’t matter anymore, none of it did. It was 20 years too late for her to be sorry.

May voice low with rage I asked her: “What exactly is it I should understand?” my voice got louder than I intended it to be and my mother cringed. “That you left your healthy daughter alone, because she can perfectly fend for herself? That you deprived me of your love and care, because all there was for you was Wynni? Of course I understand, but I don’t have to accept it or your apology.”

“Gwynni”, my mother began and reached out for me, but I stepped back. I could see the pain in her eyes, could literally hear her heart breaking but I didn’t care. “We never did this on purpose, I never did. Your father and I broke because of that sickness. The Virus all but destroyed our family.”

My hand wrapped around the frame more tighly and I really feared to break it but the frame only crunched a little. “No, mother.” I said my voice being so cold that I nearly shivered a little bit. “It wasn’t the virus that destroyed our family. It was you. You left me and Dad alone never giving us the chance to cope with everything. That is why he went away, because he couldn’t stand it anymore, because he couldn’t stand you anymore.”

I had to take a deep breath to not start bursting out in tears myself. The knot in my chest tightened and I was afraid it would soon result in me not being able to talk anymore. So I had to tell her everything that I had always wanted to say to her.

“You distanced yourself from him, from me and pretended you only had one daughter. As if you were the only one that experienced the angst and hurt. You treated her like a doll and me like shit. She was the saint and I the sinner.” now, the tears were falling anyway and I felt ashamed for it. Actually I didn’t want my mother to see how much all this years had hurt me deep inside.

We stood there nevertheless, looking at each other and seeing the tears of disappointment, desperation, and mourning. But the leopard can’t change its spots, and even if my mother had apologized for everything that had happened, I couldn’t forgive her. I wasn’t ready to and maybe I would never be.

It had been easier to forgive my father. It always appeared to me as if he was going through the same thing as me, the same rejection. That was why it had always been easier to be with him than with my mother.

“Gwyneth,” she said and her voice broke. It should have broken my heart to hear her like this, to see her like this, but it didn’t. It was like my inner self had turned into ice that no one could ever melt again. “Gwyneth, you have never been the odd one out. You are my daughter. Please don’t make it harder than it already is.”

Once again she tried to reach for me, but I stepped back again. “You mean I shouldn’t make it hard for you. Now that your favorite daughter is dead you suddenly remember you had another one. Suddenly you say you loved me all along? I’m sorry mother, but I can’t and won’t believe that.”

My tears were gone in an instant. I wiped over my face once to vanish the strain of tears on my cheek. Then I cleared my throat and said with a firm voice: “Mother, I would like you to not call or visit me again. Best you don’t contact me in anyway. Should you still have some of my things, keep them and do with them what you want. The only thing I will take with me is this picture.

She was too shocked to say anything in return and she couldn’t hold me back, no matter how much she wanted. Her body didn’t seem to respond and all she could do was looking at me while I went away, silent tears in her eyes.

For the following moth I almost felt like being delirious. I didn’t go to school for teaching, instead I had myself locked up in my studio and painted without a break. On the seldom occasions that I woke up from my trance like state I realized that I was hungry and ordered a pizza. In the world I was in now, there was no hunger, no thirst no tiredness. One could have called it paradise, had it not been for those nightmares.

Eventually I even started smoking again and before I knew what was happening my kitchen was stuffed with old pizza boxes and overflowing ashtrays. My need of coffee even beat those of the finnish and the pizza boy, who thankfully also supplied me with cigarettes, soon new my first name.

My body was wrenched and soon my painting overall only fit properly on my shoulders. My hips, I had always been pretty proud of them, thank you very much, were gone, just like my bosom. Soon I was as thin as a rake. The Irony of it all was, that I had always wished to be like this. Every now and then I had tried various diets and hopes to one day be as thin as my sister. Someday however, I had stopped after realizing that most men liked to have something to touch and eventually got to feel comfortable in my own skin.

But right now I didn’t care how I looked like. I never had had that much luck with men after all. Either it was because of my really bad karma, or I simply wasn’t made to be with men. My last relationship, actually you couldn’t really call it a relationship, had been over two years ago and had left me bleeding, at least concerning the other gender. For the first few month that guy had seemed like an epiphany but it all stopped when, after 5 month, he realized that he still loves his ex. From this day on it only got worse. The first had a commitment phobia, the second was fixated to his mother, the third had countless affairs, the forth never called after the first date and the last one never even made it to the first date. I actually considered becoming a lesbian, but I suppose that wouldn’t have made me happy either.

I didn’t feel happiness now, to be hones I felt nothing at all. I live in my world of coffee, colors and cigarettes. I seemed to have become one of those eccentric artists that I normally would have laughed at. Artists that only walked through the galleries of the world in their strange clothing to gain inspiration. Or those that were sitting in a café, completely out of money, just to participate in social live in any way. The old Gwyneth would have mocked me mercilessly, if she could have seen me this way, but she didn’t exist anymore.

The death of my sister and especially the break with my mother had ripped a deep hole into my soul, I could have died without realizing it. From the outside I still seemed to be human, but there was nothing left inside of me. If someone would have cut me open to investigate my inside, there would have been a cloud of nicotine within the swallowing nothingness, at least that was how I imagined it to be. It was how I painted.

The picture I calles „Selfportrait“ were the outline of a human torso on a black background. In the place where normally the heart would have been, a blank skull grinned with a smoking cigarette in its mouth. In it’s eyes was a faint light that was about to suffocate. And that was exactly how I saw myself. But of no reason in particular I still had the strength to stand up every morning before dawn, mix new colors and fill new canvases with them.

After our harsh talk my mother called everyday. Left messages on my Voicebox that I erased before hearing them. Sometime, possibly after the tousand’th time I had enough of it and plugged the cable and threw the whole shit out the window. The sudden silence left a strange ringing in my ears and for a moment I felt like something was missing. But after being without the nerve wrecking “Ring, Ring” for two days, I loved being completely to myself, no contact to anyone.

After a few days ma father started to come to the door of my studio. Probably my mother had told him of the fight we had had and he was worried about me. That my mother could have worried about me was completely beyond my imagination. I opened the door for him reluctantly after he had knocked and begged for almost three hours. He was stabilized by some pills his doctor had given him and he really tried to talk me into taking some of them as well, but I wouldn’t hear any of that.

He told me he was seriously worried about me, that he had paid the rent for the flat that I hadn’t been in since Wynni’s death. And I knew I couldn’t tell him otherwise, he had apparently seen the flat, seeing he was the only one with a second key to it. When he had been there once, to water the flowers, he met the landlord and he threatened my father to throw all my stuff out if I would continue to not pay the rent. Dad had assured him that this would not happen again and paid every single rent I had missed, before sending a termination notice to my landlord in my name.

His Christmas present for me was a key to a garage where all of my belongings had found a place now. My whole life really fit into just four cubic meter. He had only brought one thing with him. “I thought, you’d like to have this, sweety.“ he said giving a small leather pouch. I recognized it immediately and ripped the pouch right out of his hand. I opened it and poured the content of it right into my open hand.

The bright stone sparkled in the light of my striplights and suddenly the emptiness inside of me didn’t feel so unbearable anymore. “That’s our ring.”, I said quietly and my father nodded. When my parents had heard that they would get twins, they had bought two identical silver rings with a triangular, yellow stone, a Beryll. Unfortunately their two girls had never been as identical as their rings.

However, they had always connected us girls in some way. So when I put it on my finger, I could have sworn I heard Wynni’s voice whispering something to me in the distance.

 

 


End file.
